"Yes, Ñusta Rava. Why not?" responded Cristoval, in turn surprised at the slight incredulity in her voice. "Stories of hopeless love and happy endings? Why not, my dear?"
"But do you have love-stories in Castile? I thought—"
"What didst think? We have love-stories and love-songs a-many."
"Thou hast never told me one," she said, with a shade of reproach; "nor have I ever heard thee sing except of soldiers and horrid battles."
"Why, mayhap 't is true," said Cristoval, reflectively. "But I know more of such than of the other, though once—" He paused, then added with more of suppressed emphasis and resolution than seemed to be required, "I will sing thee one now, Ñusta Rava!"
He was familiar with the guitar, and the tinya was therefore not so strange that he could not, without difficulty, find the chords. He had, moreover, taken it up when Rava was not by, and so made its acquaintance; so that after retuning he picked out a fair accompaniment and began. His song was one of those sweet Spanish airs which breathe passion in every line, and he sang with true feeling, with the richness of voice native to his race.
Rava listened to a song utterly strange and in an unknown tongue. But music, said to be the universal language, surely is the universal language of love, and her heart beat in response to every measure. Had she been indifferent to the singer she could not have been unmoved; but her unspoken longing made her doubly vibrant to his emotion, and the close left her pale and strangely quiet.
Cristoval laid aside the tinya. The moon was shining full in Rava's face as she leaned back, and he glanced into eyes from which the deep melancholy had gone. They were no longer doubtful, but swimming with happiness that struggled with timidity. The song was a revelation. It had solved the riddle of this good, brave Viracocha, and had shown him a man. He was no longer the demigod, reserved, with breast invulnerable, but of flesh and blood. She did not need to know the meaning of his words. Every inflection had said more than words. Her own voice was tremulous and almost inaudible.
"It was a love-song, Cristoval?"
"A love-song," he replied, looking away.